


Clean Slate

by Severina



Category: Oz (1997)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Community: hardtime100
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-06
Updated: 2010-02-06
Packaged: 2017-10-09 18:55:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/90470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Severina/pseuds/Severina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been three years and Toby still feels the weight of the looming grey walls pressing on him every time he drives onto the grounds.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Clean Slate

**Author's Note:**

> Post Series. Canon to, say, early S4. Then a big ol' AU.  
> Prompt 38: Quotable Oz (LJ's Hardtime100 Community)  
> Pure wish fulfillment. :)

Toby hangs the visitors pass on the rear view mirror. Sits behind the wheel and smoothes clammy hands over his faded jeans. Stares out at the parking lot.

It's almost noon and the sun is full in the sky, but everything here is swathed in muted tones of brown and grey: the chain link fence that surrounds the lot, the cracked asphalt, the cars that sit patiently between faded yellow lines. Even the people, men lugging care packages and women toting oversized handbags, their faces haggard and worn from lives that have aged them before their time.

It's been three years and Toby still feels the weight of the looming grey walls pressing on him every time he drives onto the grounds.

He watches a young woman bend to straighten the bow on her daughters dress, to run a hand reassuringly over the little girl's dark brown hair, and wonders how many times Angus or his mother did the same thing with Holly over the years. Wonders how many times they had to coax her away from the safe confines of the car, whisper soothing words to her before she'd take that first step.

Toby lets an older man pass unseeing by the car before he takes a breath and steps out of the blissful air conditioning and into the sunlight. The heat of a sweltering July day smacks him in the face like a balled fist and as always he blinks in surprise, tugs a finger under the collar of his T-shirt. He always expects to shiver under the gloom of those walls, under the vacant stare of so many blank-faced windows.

He engages the lock and falls into step a short distance behind the man. Makes the long walk to the front door of the prison for the last time.

* * *

They've been waiting for ten minutes and it feels like ten thousand.

"Nervous?" Sister Pete asks.

Toby doesn't know how she can look so cool and unruffled when he feels like a mariachi band has taken up residence in his stomach and the conga line has made its way to his small intestine. He manages a weak smile. "Nauseas," he says.

Sister Pete grins, tucks her hands into the pockets of her stylish grey slacks. "It'll pass," she says. "You've both worked so hard for this. It's only natural to feel apprehensive now that the time has finally come."

"Sure," Toby says. He runs a hand through his hair, shifts in place, tries to focus on Pete's face. Anything to stop himself from staring at the entrance or imagining absurd reasons for the delay.

"Everything will be just fine," Sister Pete says.

Toby nods distractedly before he finally gives in and lets himself take a peek at the door, sure that by the time he counts to five it absolutely must open.

"Does he have a job lined up?"

One. Two.

"Tobias?"

Three. Four. Five.

Toby huffs out a sigh, reluctantly forces his eyes away from the door. "I'm sorry, Sister Pete, what did you say?"

"Tobias, we can go inside if you--"

"No," Toby says quickly. He's spent too many hours locked inside those walls, breathing that recycled air, never being treated as less than a con by the hacks even after years on the outside. Heart tripping in his chest before he can even cross the threshold each and every time, mouth dry. Chris knows what it took, made him promise to stay outside, to wait in the sun. "I mean, you can if you want to. You don't have to wait with me."

"Are you kidding? I've gone through seven assistants since you left, and each one of them is more incompetent than the last. Believe me, Tobias, I'm thrilled to get away from my desk, what little I can see of it that isn't buried under mounds of paperwork."

Toby arches a brow. "You were never a very good liar." He slides slick palms over his thighs for the tenth time, ignores the trickle of sweat coursing it's way down his spine as he straightens his T-shirt. "How do I look?"

Sister Pete cocks her head, presses her lips together. "You like fine," she says. She reaches out to brush a palm across his shoulder, smoothes away an imaginary wrinkle. "Very handsome."

"I was hoping you'd say fuckable."

"Tobias!" Pete presses a hand to her mouth, and Toby can't help but think that it's more to hide her grin than any scandalized expression.

"I don't imagine that you--" she begins, but Toby is no longer listening.

He has spent the last three years absolutely refusing to picture this moment. At first, lying alone in the dark in a bed that is too big and too empty, he'd see the image start to form behind his closed eyes and would force himself awake. He'd drag himself to his study and hunch over the minutia of the appeal until he fell asleep in his leather office chair, then awake blurry-eyed at dawn to wipe away the drool and start all over again.

And then when the i's had been dotted and the t's crossed, when all Chris had to do was behave himself and stay safe as they waited out that final year, Toby had been plagued by nightmares. The brotherhood would get their revenge, or Chris would simply be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and Toby would shake himself awake, try to chase away the phantom image of a bloodied broken Chris with strong coffee and late night infomercials.

Now he watches Chris strut through the open door of the prison and he's glad that he never let himself imagine it, because no daydream could possibly have compared to the reality of watching Chris Keller turning his smiling face to the sun. No fantasy could have incorporated the way Toby's heart pounds triple-time in his chest, or the lush and musky scent that is uniquely Keller, or the way Toby's knees go weak and his mouth gets dry when Chris turns the piercing blue of his eyes on Toby, tugs him into his arms and kisses him under that bright shining sun.

When they finally step apart Sister Pete has her chin cupped in her hand and a smile that she no longer tries to hide on her face. She shakes her head. "I have to tell you, gentlemen, I never thought we'd reach this day."

"You gotta have faith, Sister."

"Thank you, Chris," she says dryly, "I'll try to remember that." She twists her face into a mock-scowl, taps him lightly on the chest with a closed fist. "You certainly made it difficult sometimes."

Chris sobers. "Yeah. Sorry about that."

"I know." She smiles gently at him before turning to Toby, and her hand is soft when she reaches up to lightly touch his cheek. "You take care of him." She leans back to include both of them. "You take care of each other."

"You won't see me back here, Sister," Chris promises. "Toby'll keep me on the straight and narrow."

"Well," Toby says with an impish grin, "maybe not straight."

* * *

They take the back roads at an easy pace, classic rock on the radio and Chris practically hanging out of the car window, Toby turning his head every two point five seconds just to look at him.

A few miles away, Oz at their backs, and Chris finally pulls his head inside the car, props his arm on the open window and a foot on the pristine leather seat. "Green," he says.

Toby ignores the foot, focuses on the way the natural light teases out the highlights in Chris's hair, on how much brighter his eyes look in the sunshine. Wants to pinch himself so that he knows he's not dreaming. "Hmm?"

"You think you remember what green looks like, when you're inside," Chris says. "But you don't. I don't think I've ever seen grass this green in my whole fucking life."

Toby remembers kneeling on the ground in the front yard of his parents home, unable to stop staring at the vast expanse of lawn and marvelling at the soft tickle of the grass on his palm.

He'd felt the same way about _blue_; recalls his first few lunch breaks at the office, when he'd only been out for a couple of weeks, grabbing a hotdog from the vendor on the corner and then sitting with it forgotten in his hand as he stared open-mouthed at the sky. Sometimes, sitting on the concrete ledge, he'd summon the image of Chris in his mind as he tried to remember if Chris's eyes were really as blue as he thought. Then he'd stumble anxiously through the rest of the day, absolutely certain that his request for visitation would be denied and that he'd never get to find out.

He opens his mouth to share this with Chris. Closes it abruptly and contents himself with nodding in agreement when he realizes it doesn't matter. All those months of worry and doubt, the sleepless nights, the long days working on Chris's appeal and squinting over the fine print in endless law books, the ridiculous thoughts that had sometimes filled his head -- none of it mattered. The only thing that mattered was that it had resulted in Chris Keller lounging on the passenger seat of his brother's luxury sedan, the wind from the window ruffling through his short hair, his lips upturned in an enigmatic smile, watching him with eyes that really _are_ as blue as the sky.

Toby finds it a little more difficult to concentrate on the road with every passing mile.

"You gotta pull over soon."

Toby frowns, wonders if Chris is suddenly a mind reader. "Why?"

"There."

Toby follows the arc of Chris's pointing finger to the dilapidated sign for the roadside motel. He sniffs derisively. "I don't think so."

"I want to fuck you," Chris says reasonably.

Toby huffs out a laugh. "You're such a romantic."

"You saying you _don't_ want me to fuck you?"

"Of course I want…" Toby sighs. He side-glances Chris briefly before turning his eyes back to the road. "Look, I wasn't going to tell you yet, but I rented us a room, a suite, at The Four Seas--"

"Can't wait." Chris's hand snakes to Toby's thigh, and strong fingers squeeze gently. When Chris slides across the seat, nuzzles Toby's neck, palms his dick and breathes warm and wet against his ear, the car momentarily wobbles over the unbroken white line.

"You're going to get us killed on your first day out," Toby says shakily.

"Then pull over."

He's forgotten this, despite weekly meetings in the interview room to discuss Chris's case, meetings in which they managed to sneak in lingering kisses, furtive hand-jobs under the boardroom table, the occasional hasty blow-job. But he's forgotten this, the intense overwhelming devastating phenomenon of Chris Keller when he wants something, when he wants _you_, when logic and reason take a back seat to impulse and desire.

They are almost past the gravel entranceway when Toby wrenches the wheel to the right and sends them squealing into the motel parking lot.

* * *

Toby tosses the keys toward the dresser, watches them skitter across the scarred surface. He takes in the rest of the room in a glance, more aware of the warmth of Chris's hand flat on the small of his back, on the proximity of Chris's body, the smell of him so close.

He takes a couple of steps away, turns to face Chris in the dim light. Curtains drawn, but no bars on the windows. No hacks to separate them. Nothing to stop this from happening. They're free.

Chris is leaning against the dresser, palms flat against the wood, looking like he doesn't have a care in the world, looking like he belongs here, in this cheap motel with its floral bedspread and its peeling wallpaper. When Toby snuck away with Gen for a weekend it was always to a boutique hotel with a concierge and five-star dining, and he was never even tempted to have an affair with his secretary, especially not in a place like this, and--

Toby tugs at the collar of his shirt, tries to calm his racing heart. Starts to think that taco salad may have been an unfortunate choice for lunch.

"You're shivering," Chris says.

"No, it's just…" Toby shakes his head. "I'm not."

"Okay," Chris says. He pushes off from the dresser, fingers digging into the wood and then releasing, and Toby can't stop staring at the flex of his arms, at the taut stretch of the T-shirt clinging to his chest, at the sway of his hips. Chris Keller never just walks across the room. He struts, swaggers, leads with his cock, makes it impossible to look away even when you want to. Even when you know you should.

"Do you need to get washed up or…" Toby trails off, waves a hand in the general direction of the bathroom.

"I'm good," Chris says. He catches at Toby's hand, stills the movement, draws it flat to his chest. Toby fancies that he can feel the pulse of Chris's heart beneath his palm, slow and steady, so unlike his own.

He tries to picture Chris at one of his mother's Sunday brunches, at one of the firm's cocktail parties. Fails miserably.

"I don't know. It's just…weird," Toby says, even though Chris hasn't asked a question, hasn't said anything more at all, just holds his hand loosely and watches him. He laughs shakily. "I keep thinking we're in the interview room. I keep expecting one of the guards to open the door."

"Fucking Mineo," Chris says. "You know that fucker got off on it. Probably went home and jerked off to memories of us."

"Mineo? No way." Toby cocks his head, considering. "Maybe McManus."

Chris steps infinitesimally closer. Slide of an arm around his waist, and any tiny bit of relaxation Toby was feeling drifts away in a hiss of indrawn breath. He feels light-headed, but when Chris shifts his weight Toby feels his cock rub against his, both of them impossibly hard, and yet--

Toby darts a look at the covered window.

"Nobody's gonna stop us, Toby," Chris says softly, breath ghosting across his skin, and if he wasn't shivering before he is now. "Nobody's gonna pound on the glass and threaten to toss us in the hole if we don't get into our separate bunks. Nobody's gonna fling the door open to catch you with your hand on my dick. Nobody can stop this except you."

The kids had spent a lot of time with Angus and Monica while he worked on Chris's appeal, and they were there again this weekend. His brother has been quietly accepting; his mother mostly confused. They've asked, both of them in different ways, but he hasn't been able to explain his attraction to Chris because he doesn't fully understand it himself. He only knows that he's never felt this way before.

"You say the word," Chris says, "and I'm gone."

He never wants to give up this feeling, this rush. He never will.

Toby gently pulls his hand away, lets it slide across Chris's broad chest to curve around his neck. His knees still feel weak, but he knows Chris will be there to hold him up if he needs it.

"You're not going anywhere," he says firmly.

"I love you, Toby," Chris breathes, and it sounds like a prayer. Like a vow.

Toby didn't let himself imagine this day, or any of the days that will follow it. Which means, of course, that they have a clean slate. A fresh page in the notebook. He intends to fill every page with colour.


End file.
